Page 9 - The Case For Change

8 THE CASE FOR CHANGE

This is the U.S. of today. Fresh population estimates reinforce this.

• According to the 2017 Census estimates,
Multicultural Americans made up 40 percent of
the U.S. population.

• 40 million African-Americans comprise 12.3
percent of the U.S. population.

• 60 million Hispanics make up 18.2 percent of the
U.S. population.

• 19 million Asians, and individuals who are native
Hawaiian or Pacifi c Islander, make up 5.8 percent
of the U.S. population.

• 11 million Americans who indicated they were mixed race or of an “other”
non-Caucasian category make up 3.4 percent of the U.S. population.

Source: “2018 Multicultural Economy,” U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey

The LGBTQ community has also emerged as a signifi cant market segment of its own.
According to a Gallup poll released in January 2017, some 10 million Americans identify
themselves as LGBTQ, 4.6 percent of the population. For those born between 1980 and 2012,
the number is closer to 7 percent (Gallup, In U.S., More Adults Identifying as LGBT, 2018).

On the other hand, after showing growth of 125,000 in 2015, White Non-Hispanic Americans
declined by 55,000 in 2016 (U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2016).
Forecasters have been predicting this would happen. But they assumed it would occur in 2026,
not 10 years earlier.

U.S. Census population estimates for July 2017 are even more startling: White Non-Hispanic
Americans registered the second decline in a row, continuing the pattern started in 2016. For
the fi rst time ever, deaths of White Non-Hispanics now outnumber births in the majority of
states, signaling what could be a faster than expected transition into a future in which whites
are no longer a majority of the American population (UW Madison, White Deaths Exceed Births
in a Majority of U.S. States, a Census Data Brief by the Applied Population Lab , 2018). This
shows that the dip was not an anomaly. America is changing before our eyes. Marketers and
advertisers must recognize the trends and adapt their strategies and investments accordingly.